


In Sickness and In Health

by bitch_I_might_be



Series: Thin Ice 'Verse [5]
Category: Hamilton - Miranda
Genre: Alexander Hamilton is George Washington's Biological Son, Except Alex who is just a little bitch, George Washington is a Dad, He do be thinking about her in this we love to see it, He's like He's SMALL and he's MINE and I would DIE FOR HIM, Historical Inaccuracy, M/M, Sick Alexander Hamilton, They are all doing their best, This is kind of domestic tbh, Those are basically John's exact thoughts as well so that's something we should talk about probably, Washington is struggling to accept his son is grown, What else is new, a bit of cuddling, alex is a gremlin, because of trauma but my point stands, i guess, john is whipped, past George Washington/Rachel Faucette
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-15
Updated: 2020-11-15
Packaged: 2021-03-09 19:47:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,284
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27581558
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bitch_I_might_be/pseuds/bitch_I_might_be
Summary: Alex was sick, and John just wanted to make him better, damn it all.He wasn't making it easy, and John soon found out why.–Washington worried about a lot of things, most of them concerning his son. Most of them, unfortunately, not something he could just fix, and he had some trouble coming to terms with that.
Relationships: Alexander Hamilton & George Washington, Alexander Hamilton/John Laurens, John Laurens & George Washington
Series: Thin Ice 'Verse [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2004361
Comments: 12
Kudos: 115





	In Sickness and In Health

**Author's Note:**

> I am HERE I am QUEER and I changed the ages at which all the shit went down with Alex because I wanted to :)  
> I aged him down a couple years, but it's not a significant change, I don't think.
> 
> The only thing John and Washington have in common is that they love Alex a lot and it low-key pisses Washington off. John sees it as a thing to bond over because he's pure like that.  
> Also this shows that I have no idea what to do when someone is sick besides what my Gran taught me: make them tea and make them shut the fuck up :)

The thing Alex had been coming down with turned out to be a nasty cold. A very nasty one. A very nasty one that could have been dealt with in three days flat if Alexander had just _rested_.

But no, according to him he just ‘felt a little under the weather’ and ‘was already on the mend’ and they ‘worried too much’. A load of horseshit.

Mister ‘a little under the weather’ couldn't even get out of bed about a week ago, and that was what had finally clued them in to Alexander's bullshittery; John and the general had since taken it upon themselves to make sure he kept to the bed, no matter the cost.

It was, frankly speaking, a nightmare.

“Can I _please_ just copy one missive-”

“No,” John said. He wasn’t even trying to sound apologetic and understanding anymore. It had been a week. Seven whole days of Alex whining and demanding to be let out of bed, wanting to get back to work or go for a walk or to go see Lafayette, or- well, anything that wasn’t laying in bed and getting better, really.

John had had it.

He busied himself boiling some water for tea over the crackling fireplace, because he had to do _something_ to help. Something to make the idiot he loved better, even if he had to fight him every step of the way.

“John, I’m so bored!” he said, voice too loud for his battered throat to handle, and went into a violent coughing-fit. His whole body shook and trembled, and there was a wet rattling in his chest that pinched at something in John’s own–that wasn’t a good sound. It shouldn’t be there, not after more or less a week of bed-rest.

He pushed himself up to his feet from where he’d been kneeling in front of the fireplace and made his way to the bed, sitting down on the edge to rub a gentle hand down Alexander’s hunched over, quaking back.

Alex moved himself back upright slowly, fingers massaging at his own forehead and eyes blood-shot, wet and hazy. “Head’s killing me,” he said, voice scrubbed raw.

“Oh, darling…” John trailed the hand on his back up and over his shoulder and put the other on his arm, drawing small circles into his clammy skin with his thumb. His plan to exercise some tough love on Alexander to get him to actually rest went up in smoke in his mind; he would’ve had to be heartless to go through with that when Alex looked so utterly pathetic.

“Go on, get back against the headboard, I’ll get you some tea,” he said and pressed a quick kiss to his temple before he hopped off the bed and headed back to the fireplace. He threw some dried thyme, sage and elderberry into a mug and poured the hot water on top, watching the steam curl for a second before he took it back to the bed and put it down on the bedside-table. That ought to do _something_ , or so he hoped–Alex’s cough had been getting worse, and his fever wasn’t going down, but there was nothing he could do to help that along besides making tea and scolding him every time he tried to strain himself.

After a couple of minutes Alex spent leaned back against the headboard with closed eyes, his breathing laboured, John handed him the mug. Alex sniffed and stared down into the tea, pale and miserable. A slight tremor took up residence in his limbs. 

“You should lay back down when you’re done with that,” John said, pushing past the nervous ache in his stomach. Alex was only getting worse. He was shaking, he had a headache, something was wrong with his lungs–it had started off as a low fever. How did they get there?

“Don’t wanna lay down,” Alex mumbled and sniffed again. Of course. That was why the idiot wasn’t getting better.

He sighed, frustrated. “Alex-”

“Maybe if you laid down with me?” he said, stuffy and careful and looking at John with tired, hopeful eyes like he expected to be denied. As if John could even attempt to deny him anything when he looked at him like that.

Another sigh slipped past his lips and he conjured up an indulgent, little smile. "Of course, darling," he said.

Alex smiled back at him and sipped his tea. He scrunched up his face at the strong, bitter taste, but didn't utter a word of complaint; maybe he had finally caught on to John's dwindling patience and didn't want to push him further.

"Done," he said after a short while and handed John the empty mug, who put it down on the nightstand. 

"Move over," he ordered softly, and Alex shuffled himself over to the side of the bed. It should have been a sweet reprieve, how compliant Alex was all of a sudden, but all it did was worry John more. Did he feel so bad he didn't even have it in him to be a brat anymore?

He pulled his boots off and climbed into bed next to Alex, who even lifted the covers for him, and stretched his arm out to his side in invitation. Alexander draped himself over his side, his head on John's chest and one arm around his waist. He was way too warm, John thought. It was like cuddling up with a stove. His own body-heat probably wasn't helping the matter, but Alex wouldn't settle down if it wasn't with John, so he liked to think he chose the lesser evil.

John carded his fingers through Alex’s tangled hair and worked through some knots, scratched at his scalp with blunt fingernails. Alex moaned lowly and nuzzled closer to his chest, and John smirked despite everything. A lot of things could be said about him, but that he didn’t know how to please his man wasn’t one of them.

“I’m sorry for being difficult,” Alex said, muffled into John’s shirt. “This is how I get when I’m sick. Sorry you have to put up with it.”

Oh, Lord. John’s heart contracted painfully in his chest and he tightened his hold on Alex, drawing him impossibly closer to himself. It was ridiculous how fast he could forgive Alexander for a week of frayed nerves and fought battles, but he sounded so small and genuine, and John just really loved him–still, if his sister Patsy back at home knew how little it took from Alex for John to cave, she would without a doubt laugh at him.

“You are sick, darling, and not thinking straight. It’s all good,” he said and stroked his unoccupied hand up and down his arm where it was slung around him.

There was a short silence, and then Alex sniffed. “Did I ever tell you how my mother died?”

He startled and drew in a sharp breath, staring down at the top of Alexander’s head; he couldn’t see his face in the position they were in, and maybe that had been engineered by him in preparation for this conversation. Or maybe he hadn’t planned this and just spoken on impulse, the fact his face was turned away a coincidence. John wouldn’t ask him.

“No, no I don’t think so. Would you like to?” he asked, choosing his words with care. This was entirely new territory for either of them–Alex never offered up anything about his past, and John didn’t ask him to, but if he wanted to take this step, he would be glad to take it with him.

Alex didn’t answer for a few heartbeats. The silence stretched, and John breathed through it, calm.

“Yes,” he said, with finality.

“All right, darling. Take your time,” he said, voice quiet and eyes locked on the wooden ceiling. He thought about it, in the short pause as Alex gathered his thoughts, that this position had probably been deliberate after all. They were pressed close, a comforting weight around each other, but not able to see the expression on the other’s face. Alex hated being vulnerable, even around him; he often hid his face in John’s neck when they had conversations similar to this one.

Alexander drew in a deep, rattling breath. “You know I’m from Nevis,” he began, but it wasn’t a question, so John stayed silent. “Well, back on Nevis, I grew up with my mother, and my older brother, James, and the man who I thought to be my father back then.” That alone was more information about his childhood than he had ever given up before. John closed his eyes and stroked Alex’s hair.

“The bastard walked out on us when I was six. Maman started working in a small shop, and we would help. It wasn’t too bad for a while. Then- then she got sick.”

Oh no. John could already tell he was about to feel like the biggest asshole in the colonies for hassling Alex the past couple days.

Alex sniffled against his chest, but John couldn’t tell if it was because he had a runny nose or because he was crying to himself.

“And then I got sick.” He sounded strained, more so than when he had started talking; strained from the mental or physical effort. Maybe both.

“I barely remember anything from those weeks. The stench- the _stench_ , it was horrible even before she- before she-” He broke off there and turned his face fully into John’s chest, muffling the choked sob that clawed itself from his throat. John swallowed around the massive lump that seemed to block off his voice and blinked away the tears pricking at the corners of his own eyes.

“God, darling, that- you don’t need to keep going if it hurts this much,” he said. He sounded choked up and desperate, not a fraction as comforting as he would have liked to be.

Alex made another wounded sound from deep in his chest, and John wished he could hold him tighter without hurting him. He just wanted to curl up around him and protect him and never let anything bad happen to him ever again.

“She was holding me, when she- I woke up and she was cold, and-” Alex cried openly now, hitched breath catching and shattering in his chest, his tears falling to John’s shirt.

“Shh, darling,” John said, willing his scratchy voice to soften for Alexander’s sake. He was done pushing down his own tears, he just let them roll into the pillow underneath his head and focused on rubbing Alex’s back and holding him through his grief.

It must have been frightening, to go through that kind of illness at such a young age, and then lose his mother on top of that. Right next to him; and yet he had been powerless to do anything about it.

Suddenly his burning insistence to _do something_ when he was sick made a lot more sense.

Alex calmed down after just a few minutes, probably because crying was too strenuous in the state he was in.

“You’re so nice to me, John,” he said after a long silence, in which the only sounds had been his heaving breaths.

John chuckled a little and brought the hand that wasn’t in Alexander’s hair up to his face to scrub away the traces the tears had left on it. “I’m glad you think so.”

“Hm. Too nice. Too good for me,” he mumbled and let out a low hum when John rubbed his head again.

John scoffed, but not with the same conviction he would have used if Alexander had said something that ludicrous while in possession of all his mental capacities.

“Not true, and you know it. Because I love you, remember? I want to be nice to you. Even when you’re being stubborn and difficult. That’s what I signed up for,” he said, a small smile on his lips. He didn’t mind reminding Alex how he felt about him from time to time, especially when he was upset and needed to hear a couple of nice words, even if he wouldn’t admit to it.

Alex didn’t say anything for a little while, long enough for John to assume he had drifted off to sleep, but then he let out a quiet snicker–one that devolved into another coughing-fit, but not one as severe as before.

“They do say ‘in sickness and in health’, huh? They should add something about thickheadedness,” he said, voice rough.

John shook his head, a warm fondness blooming in his chest just beneath Alexander’s head, and watched the ceiling. It didn’t do much.

“We’re not married, Alex,” he responded.

He sniffed again. “Might as well be.”

A lot of remarks came to mind for that; how it was illegal, went against God’s word, against nature, even. How they could die a senseless, early death if their relationship were to be discovered. Needless to say, he didn’t voice any of those concerns.

“Are you saying you would want to get married, Alexander Hamilton?” he said instead, teasing, and swallowed down his anxiety.

Alex hummed, thoughtful. “To you? Yeah. In general? Don’t think so.”

Dear Lord, that man would be the death of him. How he could say the sweetest things so nonchalant, John would never know.

“I love you so much, darling,” he said, a little choked up again.

“Love you too,” Alex mumbled, exhaustion bleeding into the words. After only a few moments, he finally, _finally_ fell asleep; John had gotten him to rest after all. He just hoped it wouldn’t take such an emotionally taxing conversation every single time he wanted Alex to get some sleep.

John shifted slightly and closed his eyes, knowing full well he wouldn’t be able to move from his spot before Alex woke back up, so he might as well take a nap while he was there.

* * *

Washington had to suppress a long-suffering sigh when he pushed the door to his son’s room open after a _very_ long day without neither him nor Laurens to shoulder their respective work-loads and saw his son wrapped up in the man’s arms, both of them fast asleep.

The door hadn’t even been locked. It was like the two of them were trying to get themselves killed.

Apart from the obvious danger their position posed, he also would rather not have stumbled upon them like that, for much more selfish reasons. Washington considered himself a straight-forward man, a no nonsense kind of person who faced things head on–so he wasn’t proud of the way he’d been handling his son’s choice of partner.

It was just so easy to pretend they weren’t involved like that. They had always been close, even before their relationship evolved in dangerous directions, so he could chalk most of their interactions up to a close friendship.

This, not so much. Close friends didn’t sleep on top of and tangled up with each other. A part of him was painfully aware that they most likely slept like that every single night, and that just because he didn’t see it didn’t mean it wasn’t happening, but in this one thing, he preferred blissful ignorance.

He locked the door behind him, just in case, and went to stack some more wood into the fireplace. It had burned down almost entirely to embers; they had been asleep for a while. He would have to ask Laurens if that was what his definition of ‘looking after’ and ‘taking care of’ was–even though he couldn’t deny that Alex _was_ resting for once.

Washington grabbed a narrow piece of wood and went over to the bed. There wasn’t a way to wake Laurens without waking Alex, too, so he didn’t even try to be subtle.

“John,” he said and poked him in the shoulder with the piece of wood. His brow furrowed and he blinked his eyes open slowly, immediately zeroing in on Washington.

“Sir,” he responded quietly, mindful of Alex, who was asleep still by some miracle, and frowned up at him. “Did you just poke me with a stick?”

“No,” he said, doing nothing to hide the piece of wood he still gripped.

“...all right, then,” Laurens said with a pointed look at his hand, but sleep still laced his voice. Alex stirred a little on his chest and made some vague sounds, signalling he was about to wake up.

Washington sighed and dropped the wood to the nightstand to his right. “How is he?” he said.

Laurens returned his sigh and stroked a steadying hand up and down Alexander’s back; Washington made a point not to watch. “He’s not getting better, Sir. The fever isn’t going down and I think something is wrong with his lungs.”

“You know I’m _right here_ , right?” Alex chimed in, disgruntled in a way he only ever was when sick. “You could just ask me how I’m doing.”

“I know what you’ll tell me, dearheart, but I would like to hear the truth, if you don’t mind,” he responded. He kept his voice low, but put a bit of a scolding quality to it. They had been over this a thousand times, every instance Alex got sick and refused to do anything about it, but he wouldn’t lay the topic to rest. If his son insisted on making himself worse, he would have to deal with a bit of a lecture as he did so.

“You think John’ll tell you the truth?” he shot back, voice a little stronger, and now Washington could hear the raspiness in it. He went over to the small table by the fireplace and poured a glass of water from the pitcher.

“I think John and I have a common interest in keeping you alive, my love.” There was a soft rustling of sheets behind him, the quiet creak of a bedframe, and when he turned around again and went to hand Alex the water, he was sat up against the headboard with John trying his best to tug the blanket around his shaking shoulders.

Alex accepted the water with a small ‘thanks’ and gulped it down, knowing better than to delay, and handed the empty glass off to John, who put it down on the nightstand.

He looked pale, sweaty, cold and flushed with fever at the same time. It wasn’t the first time Washington had seen his child like that, of course, but it never got easier; every time Alex came down with something, he felt himself reminded of Rachel, and how she had met her end, and the fact that their son had been right there with her.

He reached over Laurens–and wasn’t it fitting that the boy sat between him and his son, not unlike his position in their lives–and pressed the back of his hand to Alexander’s forehead. Too warm. Way too warm, he thought as he pulled his hand back.

“What am I to do with you?” he said, more to himself than Alex. 

John sighed and kissed Alexander’s temple, and Alex grabbed for the hand laying in his lap and linked their fingers together. Washington schooled his expression into something nonchalant, even though there was a sharp pain in his gut, twisting like a knife as he watched them like that. That made him a bad man, probably. A horrible, selfish man who couldn’t watch his own son being happy with who he loved; it was just so much easier, pretending like his boy wasn’t in constant danger of execution for something that lay beyond his control. 

He didn’t choose to love Laurens, Washington reminded himself, and Laurens didn’t choose to love Alex. Those kinds of things just happened, and one was left to deal with the aftermath.

A sudden thought struck, one that had absolutely nothing to do with his desire to be alone with his son and everything to do with his worry for his subordinates. “John, when was the last time you ate?” he asked, and Laurens stared up at him, sheepish.

“I don’t rightly remember, Sir,” he admitted.

“Well, that won’t do. Go find yourself some dinner, we can’t have you bedridden, too,” he said.

Laurens nodded. “Yessir.” He turned his head back to face Alex and promised he’d be back soon with a soft smile and even softer eyes, and Alex leaned forward and pressed a kiss to his lips–Washington’s eye may have twitched, but he didn’t react otherwise. He hadn’t seen them do that since the night they had unwittingly confirmed his worries, and he could have lived without ever seeing it again, if he was being honest.

Laurens untangled himself from the sheets, nodded to him on his way past, and slipped out of the room.

Washington let out a long breath and rubbed a hand down his face.

“Is everything all right, Pa?” Alex asked, bundled up in a blanket, dark eyes huge in his pale face, and his chest clenched at how young the boy looked.

“Yes, of course, dearheart. I'm just worried for you,” he answered and sat himself down on the edge of the bed. He reached up and brushed his son’s wild hair back, smoothing it down, and Alex leaned into his touch.

“Don’t worry on my behalf, Pa, I’ve lived through much worse,” he said, eyes dropping closed under Washington’s gentle petting, mouth curled in a half-smile. God damn it all, he was keenly aware of how much worse his sweet boy had lived through, and he wasn’t about to let something like that happen again.

He swallowed, his throat dry all of a sudden, and let himself look at Alex in the dim glow provided by the fireplace and the setting sun outside. He had so much of Rachel about him, he thought, his throat constricting further. His hair curled just like hers did, especially when it was unkempt like that, and it was the same dark-brown hers had been, even though his shone reddish in the sun. Washington’s late brother Lawrence had had red hair; he liked to think that had something to do with it.

The shape of his eyes, his nose, his jaw, his fierce spirit and unbreakable determination, it was all Rachel, but he had his eyes, and his smile, and his resilience, his stubbornness. Sometimes he wondered how the little act they put on could fool anyone, he was so obviously Washington’s; Martha had said so after only a day of knowing the boy, and if he had learned a single thing in his almost twenty years of marriage to that angel of a woman, it was that she was always right.

“Can you please tell me about all the work piling up because John and I aren’t there to do it so I can tell John ‘I told you so’? Because he said the rest of the guys would be fine without us for a couple of days, but I have my doubts,” Alex said and slapped a hand over his mouth when he went into a short coughing-fit. Washington frowned, listening to the out of place rattling sound in his son’s chest; John’s earlier assessment of something being wrong with his lungs had been right.

“We certainly have been noticing your absence, but getting back to work should not be your top priority right now, Alexander. Focus on getting better first, the work will still be there when you are healthy again,” he said, moving his hand from Alex’s head to the back of his neck and rubbing his thumb over his pulse-point.

Alex let out a sigh and hummed in something that could be interpreted as agreement. He shuffled himself forward a little, and Washington watched closely, ready to grab him around the torso and haul him back into bed if the need arose, but Alex stopped just short of where he sat and put his head on his shoulder, too warm forehead burning against his neck.

“Oh, my boy,” he said and wrapped his arms around him, held him close as long as he still had the chance. “My sweet boy.”

How he wished Alex would always come to him like this, to seek him out when he needed him, instead of stewing in his own misery. He had to know that there was nothing in this world Washington wouldn’t at least attempt to do just to see him smile, even if it was trying to shield him and his male lover from harm and doing his best to come to terms with him not being the only man Alex needed any longer.

Alexander’s weight grew heavier against his side, and Washington found himself hiding a smile in the boy’s hair that was so much like Rachel’s.

“Maybe you should lay back down, my love,” he suggested.

“John isn’t back yet,” Alex said to his neck.

“I’m sure John won’t be long,” he said and began the slow process of peeling Alex away from him and getting him situated back in bed. He straightened out the messy sheets and tucked his son back in, like he had done a million times before; a lump formed in his throat as he asked himself how many times if at all he would get to do it again.

Washington rubbed at the boy’s shoulder, hidden away under the covers, brushed the stray curls from his forehead behind his ear.

“Stay?” Alex asked, eyes half-lidded and watery with fever. “Until John gets back?”

He smiled, brushing a thumb over Alexander’s cheek, dragging it over the beginnings of stubble, and wondered where all the time had gone.

“Of course, my heart,” he promised. “Anything for you.”

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading!


End file.
